DoSeat: An Exclusive Marketplace For New & Used Bikes

Today, the primary concern for people is commuting, and for that having a vehicle has become a necessity. The hardest choice to make is “Should I go for what I like or What my budget allows?”. Who does a seller depend on to sell his bike? Relatives, friends or the mechanic he knows? In the end the seller is stuck with his bike for a long time. Taking these problems as the main concern, people generally opt for a second hand vehicle ‘hoping’ the vehicle would not cost them more than the price they paid (In sense of maintenance and other additional costs). In a developing country like India where budget comes first, for a middle class family, having a two wheeler has always been on a high. To eliminate the general inhibition in people of buying a used vehicle, DoSeat.com came into existence.

Team at DoSeat.com

About the company

DoSeat, a marketplace for certified motorbikes, founded by Amit Bhartiya and Kalam Shah facilitates buying and selling of used, as well as new vehicles. Amit has over 15 years of experience in the digital space – used vehicles, digital marketing, mobile marketing, research, retail and logistics. In early 2000, he cofounded ebay motors which worked as a B2B platform until 2008. Likewise Kalam has over 10 years of experience in a variety of vertical lead-generation platforms and technology stacks at Webaroo and Komli Media

The name of the venture comes from the hindi word ‘Do’ (2) where the company seems to be making their image on the same. The website quotes, “Imagine what would have happened if the second atom of Hydrogen wasn’t around when the other one was mating with the Oxygen atom? Believe us, there would have been no water on this planet. Or what if you had 3 of them? Could Manchester have been home to another Premier League team?” At least the Devils fan will be hard hit by the phrase.

The platform is solving the problem of discovery from a buyer’s point of view and most importantly, it is solving the problem of quality assurance. Amit stated that you need to have that infrastructure to solve that problem of quality, where every bike is certified by their experts, 10-12 pictures of the vehicle are uploaded.

Also, they are providing a six months warranty which is beyond engine, gear box etc, which are the objects most prone to damage or repairs when a someone buys a bike specially when the bike gets older.

The problem solving part has just begun, the company is putting roadside assistance throughout the country for the people using their services. Also, DoSeat has structured doorstep services for bikes and these are free of cost to the buyers. Even if someone buys a bike straight from the showroom, they can’t have these services, at least for free.

The site is about two weeks old and the company claims to have listed 1000 bikes till now across 20 cities. Their plan is expand this to 50 cities before the end of this financial year.

Market

Talking to iamwire about the market Amit stated that India is the world’s largest two wheeler market and 3 crore bikes are sold a year (both new and used). However, customers face a big uphill task when it comes to purchasing a bike, especially a used one. They decided to revamp this process and bring a solution to market that can benefit millions of buyers and sellers alike.

DoSeat is currently being bootstrapped by the founders, when asked about the same he quoted that they are planning to raise funding so that they can expand and improve their tech. Amit said, “We are in talks and looking to raise $1 million in the coming months.”

In future, everyone has the ability to do what DoSeat is doing, but one has to have that ability to scale and make the economics works. When asked about the same Amit said “Unlike cars, which have an average selling price of Rs 3.5-4 lakh and allows you to have a transaction fee of 1-2 percent. Two wheelers are a different case, the most you can make is Rs 800 to Rs 1500 per transaction. Also certification of the two wheeler costs around Rs 350 and on top of that warranties, assistance. The question is how do you scale this to over a 100 cities and make this unit economics work.”

The market is huge and as Amit said, it is not being tapped properly. We came across some potent competitors who might give them a sweat, some of them include Droom, Snapdeal Motors,myspinny.com and bikedekho.com.